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EFFECTIVE TEACHING 

An Efficiency Test for Teachers 

For the Use of 

TEACHERS AND SUPERVISORS 



by 
M H. DUNCAN 



-»_.+ 



. . . . .— .. • * 



EFFECTIVE TEACHING 



A MANUAL 

i j 

TEACHERS AND SUPERVISORS 



bj 

M. H DUNCAN, M. A.. (Ye 

Superintendent . .t tUe Amarillo Publii Scl Is 

Amarjllo I 



COPYRIGHT 191B. BV M H- DUNCAN 
PUBLISHED BY RUSSELL a COCKRELL AMARILLO TEXAS 

A 



I 






AUG 14 1318 



©a, 









PREFACE 
The teacher can not do effective teaching without 
having, either consciously or unconsciously, a stand- 
ard by winch to measure her work. Hie experts 
have made some progress towards giving her stand- 
ards by which to measure the objective result-, of her 
work, but they have done but little towards giving a 
standard by which to test the personal equipment, 
ideals, and methods necessary to the attainment oi 
such results. They have set before the teacher a de 
finite task without telling her how to accomplish it. 
They have given her no adequate standards by which 
she can reduce wastes, economize time and energy. 
and feel the inspiration of the ideals of the leaders in 
her profession. An attempt has been made here to 
formulate such a standard. Xo perfection is claimed 
fcr this standard; but it is believed that it is based on 
the fundamental laws of teaching and that it has been 
shown bv experience to be adequate to the attainment 
of the ideals here set forth. 

A standard is also as necessary to the work of 
the supervisor as it is to that of the teacher. The 
average supervisor deals too much in generalities and 
fails to give the teacher definite aid because he lacks 
standards by which to estimate her work. The sup- 
ervisor need:, some definite standard which will enable 
bmi to do something more than merely commend or 
condemn. The standard here suggested is intended 



to supply this need by giving t lie supervisor a definite 
means of estimating the teacher's work and of point- 
ing out to her clearly where she may improve it. 

It will he understood that this work is merely a 
standard fur the measurement of the efficiency of the 
teacher, and lavs no claim to being a treatise on 
pedagogy. Some of the topics most essential to the 
t?acher's success are very closely related and there 
may seem to be unnecessary repetition. It will be 
observed, however, on closer study that there can be 
no accurate standard of the teacher's efficiency where 
all topics are given equal prominence, for all are not of 
equal importance. It is believed that the more funda- 
mental elements are given sufficient prominence and 
those not so essential are kept sufficiently in the back- 
ground to make the test a pretty accurate measure of 
the qualifications and work of the teacher. 



— 4- 



s 



HOW TO USE THE EFFICIENCY CARD 

The teacher will read very carefully the following 
pages and endeavor to get a clear conception of the 
standards upheld with reference to the several items. 
She will then go over each item on the Efficiency < ard 
and try to make an honest estimate of her work in 
the light of these standards. Before finally grading 
herself, -he will go over the card with her supervisor 
in or der to get the benefit of his judgment, and, in 
case of a difference of opinion between teacher and 
supervisor, the grading should be deferred until fur- 
ther opportunity is given for stwh and observation. In 
grading the items, place 10 in the space opposite, it it 
?s decided that the teacher lives up to the standard 
completely, if she does not measure up to it at all, 
and the numbers between and 10 for the correspond- 
ing degrees of merit in living up to the standard. The 
teacher's efficiency is the sum of all the grades divid- 
ed by 5. 

The card should be made out in duplicate- one 
for the teacher and one for the supervisor. The teach- 
er will alwavs keep her card accessible and study it 
with a view to improving in the items where she falls 
below the standard The supervisor will keep his 
card on file, become familiar with it. and. when visit- 
ing the teacher, will Study her work with a view to 
helping her strengthen her weak places. 

It will be observed that there are to be four 
grades during the school year— one each quarter. 
The first should not be made before the end of the 



TEACHER S EFFICIENCY CARD 



I General Conditions: 

1. Light 

2 Heat 

3. Ventilation 

4. Cleanliness of floors 

5. Appearance of room 

6. Tone of room 

II. Pupils : 

7. Properly seated 

S. Take proper position 

9. In good physical condition 

10. Care for school property - - - - - 

11. Respectful to teacher 

12. Considerate of each other 

13 Observe good order and decorum .... 

14. Use time advantageously 

15. Regular in attendance 

III. Teacher: 

16. Enthusiastic 

17- Patient and sympathetic 

18. Self-confident 

1!». I >rpendabU 

20. Courageous in face of difficulties 

21. Sensitive to conditions in the room 

22. Takes interest in the pupils' outside activities 

23. Believes in pupils 

21 Does not find fault 

25. Praises good work 

26. Knows the subject 

27 Plans lessons ahead 

28 [nformed as to best methods 

29. Cooperates with other teachers 

30. Cooperates with general plans of school 

rv. Teaching: 

31. Based on pupil's past experiences 

32. Based on pupil's present needs 

33 Reaches each child 

34. Goes beyond inert- information .... 

35. Provides for frequent reviews .... 

36. Requires unity in recitation 

37. Standards high; only pupil's best efforts 

accepted 

38 Avoids lifeless formalities 

39. Tests preparation of lesson 

40. Makes haste slowly 

41. Fulfills lesson plans 

42. Arouses and sustains interest 

43. Assignment arouses effort-evoking interest 

44. Develops self control ... .... 

V. Pupils' Response: 

45. All take part in recitation 

46. Do most of the talking 

47 Have proper attitude towards work 

48. Prompt in bringing up work 

19. Show independence of thought .... 
50 Make good when they leave supervision 

Efficiency: 

Second quarter.. 

Fourth quarter.. 



.Grade. 



Fi rst quarter.. 
rhird quarter. 



—6— 



first month and not until teacher and supervisor have 
had ample opportunity to study tin il items and 

to estimate the teacher's daily work with them in view. 
The test will possess no value unless teacher and sup- 
ervisor take it serioush and give some time to it. 

If the teacher has no supervisor -he will hi 
depend vvholl) on her own judgment in grading. Il 
is believed, however, even in such a case, that the 
teacher who makes an honest estimate of her ability 
]i\ the standards here set forth and endeavors to mi 
prove her work will be abundantly repaid tor her 
effort^. 






Effcrtto (foarhmg 



INTRODUCTION 

Teachers succeed or fail in teaching- for the same 
reasons that men and women succeed or fail in other 
business. Men and women fail in business because 
they do not observe the laws of business success, and 
teachers fail in teaching because they do not observe 
the laws of teaching success. There is a personal 
element, of course, in teaching as there is in business 
which enters very largely into the success of men and 
women in this profession, but this personal element 
does not count as much as we usually think, and the 
great majority of teachers can increase the effective- 
ness of their teaching more than 100 per cent by a 
conscientious observation of the laws of success 
which govern their work. In fact, we are told that 
the average business man is not more than 40 per 
cent efficient, and, if this be true of the average busi- 
ness man, it is also true of the average teacher, and 
mure than likely, if the full truth were known, the 
efficiency of the average teacher would not measure 
up to 40 per cent of her possibilities, for the reason 
that the results of the teacher's work are not so tang- 
ible and there is not the same incentive to effort. The 
results of the efforts of the business man show in his 
profits; his work has been standardized and we know 
what to expect of him, but this is not true of the work 
of the teacher. She must continue, for a time at least, 
without evident results and there is during this inter- 
val, to say the least, a temptation to shirk to which 
many teachers yield. Seeing the chips fly from day 
to day is a great incentive to more strenuous effort in 
any business, anil the teacher who can not see such 
daily results frequentlv comes to the conclusion that 



a little shirking won't make much difference. It is 
for this reason that in determining the efficiency of 
the teacher, we must go beyond the tangible results 
of her work to those elements of her personality, pro- 
fessional preparation and spirit which the science of 
teaching has taught us must be present if she succeeds 
in her work. It the teacher can be induced to regard 
these persona] and professional elements as funda- 
mental in the success of her business, she will cer- 
tainly see more clearly the meaning of greater effort. 
She will see that the spirit which leads her to shirk 
is the spirit that destrov; her possibilities and closes 
to her the door of opportunity in her profession. 

In this discussion, it is our purpose to help the 
teacher measure the effectiveness of her work by 
pointing out the chief elements in effective teaching 
and by giving her a standard l>v which she may be able 
to determine her weak and strong points. The aver- 
age teacher dues nol improve herself because she 
does not, in the first place, know where her chief 
weaknesses are. and, in the second place, if she does 
know them, she dues not know how to correct them. 
She ma\ know that her work is not as effective as it 
should be. but she frequently does not know just why 
it is not. She needs some means by which she can 
measure wdiat she is in the light of what she may be. 

Some one has said that a position is worth not 
what it pays, but what it teaches. Where the teacher 
takes one dollar for her services from her position, she 
should take five dollars worth of instruction and ex- 
perience. She should constantly use it as a means of 
improvement, and when she comes to the point where 
she can not learn more from a position, it is time for 
her to leave that position for another. Most fre- 
quently when she comes to that point, if she comes to 
it by study — and that is the only way she can really 
come to it — another position with greater remunera- 



— 'j- 



tion will be waiting for her. No teacher should be 
content to go on day after day without learning some 
valuable lessons from her position. Frequently teach- 
ers seem to feel that their services become more 
valuable each year they teach. However, this does not 
follow in every case. It is not the amount of exper- 
ience the teacher has had that gives her work value; 
: t is the kind. The teacher who has taught but one 
\ear may he worth far mure than the one who has 
taught ten. In fact, it is very frequently the case 
that the teacher descends into a deadening routine in 
her work which from year to year detracts from its 
effectiveness and her worth as a teacher. 

In the teacher's profession, traditionalism and con- 
ventionality count for so much that she is likely to 
become a mere machine to grind out her work day 
after day without making any effort to improve 
herself. She is likely to get into a rut and become 
self-satisfied. It is only the progressive, wide-awake 
teacher wdio will study her work and make effort to 
increase its effectiveness. Such a teacher will throw 
traditionalism and conventionality to the winds and 
make every method she uses answer to the test of 
reason and common sense. She will lie on the alert 
for new and more effective ways of doing her work 
and when she finds a method that she believes will 
increase her efficiency, she will not hesitate to use it. 
She will keep her eyes open to the best books and 
magazines that bear on her work, and she will read 
them carefully, jotting down in a note-book any point 
that she believes will help her. She never reads just 
for the sake of reading and to no purpose, but she 
reads in answer to a felt need that has arisen from a 
close study of her work and a deep dissatisfaction with 
the way she is doing it. The burning question with 
her is, "Why do I do my work as I do and how can I 
do it better?" 



—10- 



The writer knows a business man who will go 
across the continent to learn a point that will improve 
his business. This business man reads all the books 
and journals he can get that hear on his business, and 
he has ■-pent hundreds ..f dollars traveling to find 
opportunity to talk with those who have information 
about his business which they are not giving out for 
publication. This man is efficient and his business is 
a success, because he has spared no pains to master 
it. However, his course is quite a contrast to that 
of the average teacher who goes on from year to year 
making no effort to improve herself. She does not 
read the hooks that hear on her work, and if she reads 
a journal, it is in a perfunctory way to satisfy tran- 
sient needs that may arise in her work from day to 
day, and not because her study of her work has shown 
her her weaknesses and made her feel the need of 
more knowledge. She complains because she has to 
attend the teacher's meetings and even when an ex- 
pert in her line is invited to address the meeting, she 
will remain at In ime if there is any excuse she can gi\ e 
for so doing. Teachers' salaries should be twice what 
they are, but the fact that she is poorly paid and not 
properly appreciated should not cause the teacher to 
fail to improve every opportunity to increase her effi- 
ciency as a teacher, and, perhaps, one of the main 
reasons why she is not better paid is because she lacks 
the professional spirit to master her work and make it 
more effective. The call of the educational world of 
today is to the men ami women who know their work. 
For them the outlook was never more promising than 
it is at present, both as to the opportunities for service 
and the material rewards to be gained. Let the 
teacher show herself a master and it will not be long 
before she will be receiving a master's wages. 

Like other business men and women, the teacher 
is going either forward or backward. There is no such 



—11— 



thing as standing still. Each day finds her either im- 
proving or retrograding. No teacher leaves the 
school at the end of her day's work quite the same as 
she was when she began in the morning. She has 
gained or she has lost something. If she is not 
studying to add to the spirit of her work and to be- 
come mure proficient in training the children in her 
care, she is descending into a deadening routine that 
is slowly sapping away her professional vitality; and 
to say nothing of the welfare of her children, her sense 
of business pride and her desire to succeed even in a 
material way should be a sufficient incentive to spur 
her <m in greater efforts. When she considers that 
the future lives and destinies of her pupils depend 
largely on how well ^he does her work, she will cer- 
tainly not be satisfied with anything less than the very 
best it is possible for her to be. 

In the business world, it is pretty safe to act on 
the principle that a method old enough to be inherited 
is old enough to be laid aside, and the teacher will not 
go far wrong to act on the same principle. At least 
she should never accept a method just because it has 
been handed down to her from former teachers. She 
should apply the test of common sense to every meth- 
od she uses ami adapt it to her own peculiar situation. 
Not only are the methods of teaching being constant- 
ly improved, but conditions in the school room are 
constantly changing and methods that would succeed 
in the past may not succeed today. The fundamental 
natures of children remain the same, but they acquire 
new interests as conditions about them change, as 
thev are constantly doing today; hence the teacher 
who uses methods handed down to her from her eld- 
ers is not likelv to meet with much success. The 
task of the teachers' training school is not to give the 
teacher specific methods of work; it is to give her 
such an insight into her work, such a knowledge of 



—13- 



the child and the various subjects that she is to teach 
as well as of the world she is to prepare him for, as 
will enable her to work out her own methods. 

B) teaching the teacher special methods and by 
failing to give her that insight into her work no 
sary to independent judgment, the training scho 
frequently do more harm than good. They often 
teach methods that will not apply to the special situa- 
tion into which the teacher comes when she leaves 
school, and. as a result, she must either take time 
change her methods or go on with methods that 
will turn out disastrously for the children. One of 
the rules most fundamental to business success is that 
a thing should be learned right from the beginning. 
Emp frequently prefer in their business young 

a to old oin because they have less to unlearn. 

>rld famed violinist has been spoiled by his 

not learning to use his bow right in the beginning. 

Man} - a surgeon has remained at the bottom of the 

ladder because he got into the habit in the beginning 

holding his knife incorrectly. Many a Joe Jackson 
has remained in the minor leagues because as a boj 
he fade I to master the correct technique of his art. 

Many a m ister in the scl I room has been unheralded 

and unsung because she failed to use her head and 
depended upon methods handed down to her from 
past ages. The teacher should study methods, even 
special methods, both those that are current and 
those that have been laid aside, for thereby she may 
he able to get some idea that she can adapt to her own 
situation; but she should newer use a method without 
applying to it the test of common sense. She should 
know- that every method she uses is the best possible 
one for the particular conditions in her own school. 
Let the teacher remember that the best education 
is self-education, and that while she maj not have 
been able to have the superior advantages offered by 



-13- 



our normal schools and colleges and may not be able 
to attend the summer schools and chautauquas, she 
may improve herself and be counted among the mas- 
ters of her profession, if she is willing to pay the 
price. Some one has said that we can be what we 
want to be, if we want to hard enough. The teacher 
can rise above the common place to a position of 
eminence in the profession of teaching, if she wants to 
hard enough. Her success does not depend upon 
where she was educated or the number of degrees she 
holds — although all these things are good if they are 
not permitted to get in her way — but upon her ability 
to "deliver the goods" in the particular position she is 
trying to fill. Teachers may be able to get good posi- 
tions through friends and because of their diplomas, 
but they cannot hold them by such means, and they 
can not, by such means, rise to better positions. There 
was never in the history of teaching such a demand as 
there is today for trained teachers, not especially for 
those from the normal schools and colleges, for they 
may not have been trained properly at all, but for 
those who have been trained through their own exper- 
iences, through their own hard work, and through 
their own thorough preparation of heart to solve the 
complex problems of modern education. 

In the following discussion, it is our purpose to 
make as clear as we can the several items in the 
Teacher's Efficiency Test given above and to show 
the teacher how to apply them to the conditions in 
her own room. 



— n- 



I GENERAL CONDITIONS 

Too many teachers fail, or are less efficient than 
they might be, because they do not give adequate at- 
tention to these general conditions. These items are 
of extreme importance and the teacher can not neglect 
them without greatly lowering the effectiveness of 
her work. 

1. Light. — There are many problems of lighting 
over which the teacher has no control and for which 
>he is of eom>c, not responsible, hut, accepting con- 
ditions as she finds them, she can yet do much to 
miake the lighl of her room what it should be. She 
may adjust the shades from time to time so as to make 
the light agreeable to the eyes of the children in the 
different parts of the room — not too strong or too 
dun. She may arrange the children so that they will 
gel the light they individually need. Some children 
need more light than others and should be placed 
where the light is best; while those who do not need 
so much light may he placed in the darker parts of the 
room. The teacher may also see that the janitor 
keeps the shades properly hung, and she may adjust 
the work of the children from day to day to the light 
conditions in the room. On cloudy days when the 
light is bad and it is impossible to adjust the shades 
so as to let in an adequate amount, she may shorten 
the study periods si, as not to tax the eyes of her 
pupils. 

In all cases the light should come into the room 
from one side and it should never fall into the faces 
of the children. If the teacher finds that the desks 
are sitting so that the light falls so as to injure the 
pupil's eyes, she should have them changed at once. 
The eye is a very delicate organism and the teacher 
should always be extremely careful to permit no in- 
jury to come to it because of the work or conditions 
in the school room. 



— 15— 



2. Heat. — The teacher exercises also only a par- 
tial control over the heating of her room, but even 
with this partial control she can do much to make it 
what it should be. She can make it such as to be con- 
ducive to study or she can make study impossible. 
As a rule, the temperature of the room should be kept 
at about ii s degrees Fahrenheit. However, the num- 
ber of degrees depends largely on climatic conditions 
and on the general humidity. If the climate is moist 
and the temperature is moderate most of the time, 65 
degrees is a sufficient maximum ; hut in a dry climate 
where the winters are long and severe, it will require 
6S i <v 7*i degrees. 

The teacher can do much to keep her room at 
about the required temperature by turning off and on 
the heat, by regulating the ventilating system, or by 
raising and lowering the windows, whichever in her 
judgment will get the desired results. The teacher 
who neglects the proper heating of her room will very 
likely render void her efforts along other lines and 
greatly lower the effectiveness of her work. Children 
will neither study nor enter into the recitation when 
they are t( o hot or too cold. 

3. Ventilation. — The average school building i^ 
not constructed with a view to proper ventilation. 

I'i'» frequently the only means of ventilation is the 
raised or lowered windows and this is not at all ade- 
quate. When the windows arc either raised or low- 
ered, the children next to them feel the draft too 
much, while those on the opposite side of the room 
do not get the benefit i if it at :dl. 

However, with all these difficulties to overcome. 
the teacher can do much to keep a supply of fresh air 
i:i the room without making it uncomfortable for the 
children. She can do this by constantly shifting the 
windows, raising and lowering them in different parts 
of the room. She will have to be the iudsre as to 



-IG— 



which one to r; I which one to lower, and 
should base such judgment on a careful stud} of con- 
ditions. The position of the room and tl i tion 
of the wind will have much to do with these things. 
Frequently it is a good plan to raise all the windows 
and give the room a g 1 airing at the recesses; how- 
ever, sometimes the heating plant is poor and 
do this would render the room uncomfortable for the 
r c^t ol the day. The teacher must be her own judge 
in such cases, and when there is any doubt as to 
best thing to be done, she should consult her prin- 
cipal. Here, as everywhere else, when she does not 
know what to do, she will not go far wrong to e 
just gi ii id ci minion sense. 

4. Cleanliness of floors. — When you find papers 
and dirt scattered over the floor of a room, you i 

he prett) sure that there is something wrong. The 
children in such an environment mav be learning 
something, but the} are not living up to their possibil- 
ities. They are not entering into their work as thev 
should be doing and the teacher is not awake to the 
possibilities of her work' or doing her best. The littered 
floor is not so bad in itself, but it is an indication of an 
evil more deeph seated. It is an indication that the 
children are not having instilled in them correct hab- 
its as to cleanliness, order, etc. These habits mean 
far more to their success in the world than what they 
learn from their text books and their formation should 
lie regarded of paramount importance. 

5. Appearance of room. — School rooms like 
homes vary greatlv in their appearance and attrac- 
tiveness. Some of them are attractive and afford a 
most inviting place for study and reflection; while 
others are unattractive, barren, coid, uninviting and 
chill the spirits SO that stud} is impossible. 

The teacher who neglects to make her room at- 
tractive is thereby taking the most direct course to- 



-17 — 



ward lowering the general effectiveness of her work. 
The appearance of a room is one of the little things 
that has most to do with the work of the children. 
Learning is a spiritual process, and it cannot be done 
properly unless spiritual conditions are right. The 
room with clean walls, attractive pictures, clean 
floors, pot plants, and where everything is kept in 
order is the room where you will most likely see 
happy faces, and these happy faces are but an out- 
ward sign of better things that are going on within. 
Whatever the cost let the teacher make her room at- 
tractive and the surroundings such as to make the 
children happy. 

6. Tone of room. — The tone of the room is the 
product of all the conditions we have been discussing 
before and of some other things that we can feel bet- 
ter than we can define. It includes respectfulness, 
decorum, studionsness, contentment, happiness and 
confidence on the part of both pupils and teacher, 
^ood tone in the room is absolutely indispensable to 
good work, or rather it is an evidence that good work 
is being done, and when it does not exist, the teacher 
should center all her efforts on bringing it about. If 
die finds that she can not bring about such a tone, she 
is not the teacher for the place and she owes it to her- 
self and the children to get out of the way. The 
teacher who can not produce the proper tone does 
more harm than good, and she commits a crime 
against herself and the children every day she re- 
mains in the school room. Children may mechani- 
cally absorb a few things where the spiritual condi- 
tions of the room are not right, but we may be sure 
that they are not being educated in the true sense of 
the term — they are not growing from within. 



-18- 



II PUPILS 

7. Properly seated. — Desks should not only be 
adjusted to the sizes of the pupils, but they should 
he arranged compactly so that all th< pupils will be 
as near a-- possible to tin' teacher. The teacher should 
take her position in front oi the pupih where sh< 
look each one in the face. The seats should bi 
ranged so that the light will conn from the reai or 
from the left- -preferably from the hit -and so ; 
make provision for the stove, if then must be i 

the room. When these essentials have been met, the 
next thing most important is i< have the pupils as 
near the teacher as possible. There r a silent !■ 
that goes out from the teacher to the pupils, -w 
gives her an indefinable influence ovet them when she 
is near them and can look them in tin lace. Foi 
reason, the teacher who takes . position in front i i 
pupils is better able to hold then atti ntion that I 

she moves about or takes a position . I the side oi 
1 1 n mi or in the rear, 

8. Take proper position. — I he physic; 

oi the pupil is indicative of his mental attitude ' i 
fact, the two are interdependent i teache i 

not if ford to neglect the physical attitude of the puj il, 
if she would have a wholesom< i tfluence over his 
mental and moral attitude. Pupib should not be 
forced to sit up like statues all in- time, but ,vhen 
keen mental effort is required, tin . should sit e t 
and in a proper position. This I their n 

to work, rivet their attention on vvhal is being done 
and greatly stimulate the learnn < ss. 

PupiK should also he requin I take a pn i 
position in the recitation, The} should stand erect 
when making a discussion, hold their hooks pro \y 
when reading, and when at tin rd the) si : i 

use a pointer in making their ex] lanations and -.;; nd 
where a'l ma\ see their work. It -sir; nge that 5 ■ ie 



— 19- 



teachers - so forgetful of these so-called little 
things as to permit the pupil to stand at his desk and 
explain a problem on the board across the room, or 
to permit him when at the board to stand between the 
problem and 'he majority of the class. We wouldn't 
give much for such explanations, nor would we count 
much on the results of the teacher's work, who per- 
mits such i thing to be done. It is an indication that 
she has not arisen to the demands of her work and 
that she d >es not see clearly the problems involved 
in it. 

It is necessary to have pupils go to the front 

every tim \ read, for it takes too much time; but 

when they have something special they want read to 
the class ir when the teacher wants to especially em- 
phasize- a point, it is well to have pupils read from the 
front of i »om. The position of the pupil in his 
stud) and ecitation is more important than the av- 
erage te nnks, and it is a pretty good indication 
of the results that are being obtained in an intellectual 
and moral \ \ 

9. [n c.ood physical condition. — The learning 
proces-- remely responsive to the physical condi- 

tion of ilp/ pupil, and, for this reason, the teacher 
should not ;nly maintain conditions as to light, heat, 
ventilation the general appearance of the room, the 
arrangei and adjustment of desks, etc., but she 

should - ■ that the pupil is in a good physical condi- 
tion. Tii'- teacher may claim that she hasn't the 
knowledge necessary to such work and that it is not 
properly in her sphere; but when she realizes the ex- 
tent to Airch the effectiveness of her teaching de- 
pends on such knowledge, she will make every effort 
to acquit it. There are a number of good books on 
health m he teacher can easily become familiar 
with two three of them. Besides, the up-to-date 
health series prepared for school use, such as the Gu- 



—20- 



lick, the Ritchie, and the O'Shea-Kellogg, contain 
enough information for all ordinary purposes, and, 
certainly, it is not asking too much of the teacher to 
.ecome familiar with these. How the child lives has 
i vital bearing on how lie studies and how he conducts 
limself m school, and the teacher must help to get 
hini i,, live right, if she would have him think and act 
eight. Every child should he taught how to eat. 
sire]., breathe, bathe, dress, stand and walk. These 
are the things out of which life is made and the 
teacher can not neglect them if she would make life 
what it should be. Some teachers feel that tl 
things are out of their sphere and beneath their dig- 
nity. They feel that they ar» engaged in the loftier 
wo 'rk of feeding the minds and hearts of the children, 
and they have been too prone to take a proper physical 
basis for their work as a matter of course. I [owever, 
a deeper insight into the real life of the child in caus 
iu- the teacher to see that a physical basis in the child 
i- not a thm- of minor importance and that it can not 
be neglected without greatly lowering the effective- 
ness , if her w < >rk. 

The teacher should also become familiar with the 
indexes of the commoner physical defects among 
children, such as defective vision, defective hearing, 
defective teeth, adenoids, enlarged tonsils, malnutri- 
tion, nervousness, etc.. and she should do her part to 
see that such defects have the proper treatment at the 
hand of a skilled medical man. The child suffering 
from any one of these defects will fall below normal in 
his school work, and, if he suffers from more than one 
of them, he is frequently wholly incapacitated for 
doin- his work. The teacher who really wants to in- 
crease the effectiveness of her work and thus her use 
fulness as a teacher has here a ferine field of labor. 
10. Care for school property. — The child is edu- 
ated more bv the environment of the school than he 



is by what he learns from books, and it is a pretty 
good sign of the ineffectiveness of the work of a 
school or a room, if the children do not take the 
proper care of school property. In the school or 
school room, where you find the children defacing 
and destroying property, you may be pretty sure that 
they are not being educated, but dis-educated, if such 
a term may be used. They are building wrong habits 
instead of right ones. The tone of the school should 
be such as to inculcate respect for school property, 
and where there is not such respect, it is because the 
tone of the school is not what it should be, and the 
tone is not what it should be, more than likely, 
because the teaching is not what it should be. 
Children should be taught to take care of their 
books, not to mark or mutilate them. There is no 
better indication of indifference to school work, 
carelessness, and slovenliness among children than 
the failure to properly care for their text books. 
The care of school property is a result; it is also a 
cause. It is the result of the pupil's habits and atti- 
tudes of mind, and it has much to do with making 
these habits and attitudes what they are. 

11. Respectful to teacher. — A proper respect 
on the part of the pupils toward the teacher is one 
of the essential elements of a proper tone in the 
school room and the general bearing of the teacher 
has much to do with bringing about such an attitude. 
The teacher must prove herself worthy of respect 
before her pupils will respect her. She must at all 
times conduct herself with dignity, grace and poise, 
and she must prove to her pupils that she knows her 
business. 

When the teacher finds that a pupil is getting 
away from her, she should make every effort to win 
him back. She should seek to prove to him by her 
words and actions that she is his friend. If she 



fails to win the pupil more than likely it is because 
the attitude of the parents is not what it should he 
and she should endeavor to bring about a proper atti- 
tude on the part of the parents by proving to them 
that she has the good of their child at heart. The 
teacher should always be willing to do more than her 
part to win and retain the good will of her pupils 
and patrons. She should not sacrifice principle to 
do tin-, nor do that which will ultimately work evil 
to the child, but she should be willing to sacrifice her 
own feelings occasionally; for she can accomplish 
but little with the pupil unless she possesses his good 
will and that of his parents. Then when one pupil 
becomes estranged, his disaffection soon spreads to 
Others, and if the teacher does not meet the situation 
she will find her power and influence passing away 
from her. 

12. Considerate of each other. — This topic is 
largely the counterpart of the one discussed before. 
Pupils who are respectful to their teacher will usually 
he considerate of each other; especially will this be 
the case, if the respect for the teacher is a wholesome 
respect and founded on true worth. Respect for 
each other is not so fundamental in itself, but it is an 
indicator of things more essential to the real welfare 
of the school. It shows whether the work of the 
school is going home to the lives of the pupils or 
whether it is merely on the surface. Pupils in 
school are not preparing for life; they are then living. 
They are building up those habits and attitudes that 
will determine their habits of thought and conduct 
is men and women, and if as boys and girls in a school 
they are considerate of each other, they will be con- 
siderate of each other as men and women when they 
leave school, and surely in a great democratic com- 
monwealth like our own this is one of the things most 
essential. Such a habit can not be built up by teach- 



ing alone; here, as elsewhere the pupil must learn to 
do by doing. He must learn to he considerate of his 
neighbors when he leaves school by being considerate 
of his fellow students in school. 

13. Observe good order and decorum. — School 
discipline depends very largely on the hearing of the 
teacher and how she conducts her work. Instruction 
and discipline are very intimately related, and most 
frequently where there is bad order in the room, it is 
because the teaching is poor. Bail order is at least 
a sign that the instruction is not having the desired 
effect and the thing for the teacher to do, in such a 
case, is to improve her instruction. When the in- 
struction is what it should he, the discipline will take 
care of itself. 

Good order does not mean absolute quiet. It 
does not mean submission brought about by the iron 
hand of the teacher. It means unity of purpose in 
the room and a blending of the will of the pupil and 
the teacher. It means that all have a common pur- 
pose in view ami that all are working together in 
harmony to accomplish a certain end. This may be 
done in quietness or it may require some seeming 
contusion. However, the spirit that pervades the 
work and the goal in view are the important things, 
and the teacher should never lose sight of them. 

14. Use time advantageously. — It is said that 
the average good business man loses two hours' work 
every day because he does not know how to use time 
advantageously. He does not know how to get into 
his work and he does not know how to economize time 
after he does get into it. He makes many useless 
steps and many useless motions that could be avoid- 
ed if he knew how to arrange his work with a view- 
to efficiency. 

One of the things every pupil should learn in 
school is the right use of time. His geography, arith- 



-24— 



mctic, and grammar will mean but litt im, if he 

is permitted to get into the habit of v by 

idling in the school room. The teachi il I study 

every movement, every motion of t! ery 

change from study to study and from '. t.ation to 
recitation, and arrange his work so • nculcate 

in him the habit of saving time. Sli< Id teach 

him in every possible way the value oi hat it is 

the stuff lives are made of, and that every man and 
woman who has achieved fame has 
right use of time. 

15. Regular in attendance. — One _ r< Mem 

of the teacher i- to secure regularity in tin (tendance 
of her pupils. Attendance is a good e of the 

pupil's interest in the work oi the s< t is a 

pretty good indication under normal conditions, of 
the effectiveness of the teacher's work n ;ipils are 
actually sick main' times, of course, and are kept out 
of school for other good reasons; hut they will remain 
out on a more trivial excuse from a sch" i in which 
they are not interested than from oni Inch they 

are. Slight indisposition will make no ifiere ii 

the child 1< ives the w i irk i if the school an., hi: lea< her , 
bul lie will he glad of any excuse to re: , i home 

if the work is unpleasant or the teacher disagreeable. 

Most of the poor attendance in sch< oi however, 
is due to the fact that parents do not te the 

importance of their children's being in school and 
they keep them out for almost any ;■ ' ! cause. 
The teacher has an opportunity here to dc some effec- 
tive work in bringing about a right attitude ami a 
right understanding' among patrons should 

make them feel that the school is the child - : ashless 
and it suffers just as much when he is away from it 
as the father's business doss when he ■ Par- 

ent? should be made to understand that even one day's 
absence is likely to prove disastrous to the work of 



the child and that he should not be kept out of school 
if there is any possible way to avoid it. 

The teacher should not be satisfied unless every 
pupil is present every day and on time. She should 
realize that poor attendance and tardiness are in part 
a reflection on her, and that it is in part, at least, her 
duty to see that the child is in school. She, should 
not feel that she has done her duty when she has 
taught just those who happen to be present, without 
realizing that il is her business to see that all are 
present. \\ henever a pupil is out of school, the 
teacher should know the reason, and. in case of sick- 
ness, she should either phone the parents or write 
them a note, expressing her regrets and a wish that 
the child may speedily recover and return to school. 
At such a time a little token from the teacher to the 
child will have a most salutary effect in bringing both 
the parent and the child closer to her, and a hundred 
chances to one it will cause the child to return to 
school a day or two earlier than he otherwise would 
have done. The teacher's taking advantage of every 
opportunity to show to the parents her interest in the 
child and the outcome of his work will have a whole- 
some effect on his attendance. 



-26— 



[II. THE TEACHER 

16. Enthusiastic— One of the firsl essentials in 
the life of a successful teacher is enthusiasm. Boys and 

-nls .in- like the metals in that they can not he mold- 
ed without heat, ami to undertake to instruct a room 
full of them without enthusiasm will end about as 
disastrously as trying to hammer a piece oi iron into 
shape without heating it. For this reason the teach 
er should be full of her subject and afire with a zeal 
to make her pupils feel it as she herseU does. She 
should live the subject before she goes to the reci- 
tation ami then she should he >o full ol enthusiasm 
for it as to cause her pupils to live it. We may be 
prettj sure that where there is no feeling there 
no learning. There may be an accumulation of facts, 
Inn such facts will lie in the mind and heart like tin 
digested food in the stomach. Enthusiasm is the 
digestive fluid that causes them to he assimilated and 
transformed into mental and moral bum and muscle 
Cheerfulness is closely akin to enthusiasm; in 
fact, it is an essential element of it and the SOUi 
laced, morose, unhappy teacher can noi be enthusi 
astic. Many teachers are unhappy because they 
worry over their work. Such teacher- should know, 
however, that worry not only never dues any good, 
hut that it saps away their vitality an renders them 
power'ess to do good work. \ «m man has said 
that there are two things people should not worry 
oxer — things they can help and things they can't 
help. l.mco'n once said. "I do the very best I can, 
the ver\ bet 1 know how. and I intend to keep on 
doing so until the end ; if the etui bring; me out righl 
what is said againsl me won't amount to anything, 
but if the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swell- 
ing that 1 was right would make no difference. 

The teacher above every one else lias reason for 
being optimistic. She is doing the greatest work 

—27— 



that was ever intrusted to mortal hands — shaping 
the eternal destiny of little children. To the teacher 
God has given the raw materials of his most wonder- 
ful creation and it is her task to shape it to a destiny 
worthy of its Creator, and 

"Ever, evermore shall it be thine 
To mark the growing meaning in their eyes, 
And catch vith fresh surprise and joy. 
Their dawning recognition of the world." 
The thing that stands more than anything else 
in the way oi the teacher's happiness is poor health, 
and for this reason she owes it to herself and to her 
pupils to us.- ■ ery means in her power to keep in 
good physical ondition. Nine-tenths of the teacher's 
ills are caused by improper eating, and she is not true 
to herself and her work, if she does not study her food 
needs and religiously adhere to that regimen that 
will produce in her the best physical and mental vigor. 
There are a number of good books on correct eating 
and the teachei should carefully study them and fol- 
1 their directions, or that part of them necessary to 
her good health The teacher who cares for her 
work and her -access in the school room will make 
every effort to build up correct habits also as to sleep- 
in--, breathing, dressing, working, playing, and 
thinking. Each >ne of these is vitally related to good 
health and the readier can not neglect them, if she 
would do effecti i teaching. 

And not only should the teacher keep well physi- 
cally, but she should endeavor to live in an environ- 
ment that will produce vitality, vigor and optimism. 
Her living room should be cheerful, with plenty of 
fresh air and sunshine; it should be properly heated 
and ventilated She should be surrounded by those 
who are congenial and who will do what they can to 
make her happy She should make friends of her 
patrons, visit them in their homes, and let them feel 



that she takes a real interest in their children. If 
they are patrons of the right kind, they will appreciate 
her friendship ami will reciprocate in many ways by 
making life more pleasant for her. These are the 
things that we seldom think of, hut they are neces- 
sary to the spirit of the teacher and. hence, vital to 
the well-being of the school. If patrons could only 
realize what happiness on the part of the teacher 
means to the progress of their children, they would 
he more thoughtful than many of them are to keep 
her always happy and cheerful. The)' would never 
cast a cloud across her sky. 

17. Patient and sympathetic. — The great trouble 
wfth many teachers is that they expect results too 
soon. They plant the grain of corn today and go out 
tomorrow expecting to reap the harvest. They have 
learned to labor, hut they have not learned to wait. 
They are not satisfied with nature's slow progress, 
hut expect the flowers to bloom at untimely seasons. 
Let the teacher remember, however, that patience is 
the most kingly of virtues and absolutely indispen- 
sable to success m her work. She should he sure 
that she has done her part and then patiently wait for 
results. 

Many children are not quick to grasp a point. 
They do not read readily; the) are slow in their num- 
ber work, in their laguage and other studies; 
ever, in most instances, if the teacher patiently and 
intelligently plods ahead, keeping up her faith and 
courage, she will one day he surprised at how well 
they take hold of their work. She will find many 
"times, at the end of the term, that these slow plod- 
ders are not >,i very far behind their classmates after 
all. 

Frequently a whole class will fail to take hold of 
a subject readily, and seem impervious to every effort 
of the teacher. At such times, much depends on the 



teacher's being patient and manifesting common 
sense and judgment in dealing with her pupils. When 
things are going well there is no demand for patience, 
it is only when the trying time comes that the teach- 
er's strength is tested. All depends at such times on 
how well she has learned the art of waiting and keep- 
ing cool. If she goes to pieces and shows her pupils 
that she has lost confidence in them, the battle is lost 
so far as she is concerned. 

Sympathy for the child means the ability to enter 
into his feelings, to think about his work as he does, 
and to see it from his viewpoint. Other things 
being equal, she is the best teacher who is able to live 
over again her life of childhood; and the teacher who 
can not do this is at a great disadvantage in dealing 
with little children. Pretended sympathy is not 
enough ; the child is quick to see through such pre- 
tensions, and he is driven away rather than drawn 
closer to the teacher. It takes real, heart-felt sym- 
pathy to reach the lives of little children. 

18. Self-confident. — The teacher should feel 
that she is master of her subject and the methods of 
instruction that will reach the child, and sh ould enter 
into her duties in such a manner as to prove to all 
concerned that she is master of the situation. Self- 
confidence in teaching, as in other things, is three- 
fourths of the battle, and the teacher who timidly and 
fearfully takes hold of her work, feeling that she is 
not. perhaps, doing it right and afraid of the criticisms 
of others, has already lost the battle. The teacher 
should take hold of her work as a master, feeling that 
her methods are as good as any other, if they get 
results as readily. Confidence should, of course, be 
based on knowledge and the teacher who will not 
study her work and inform herself as to the best 
methods of doing it has no ground for confidence; 
but where she knows her work and knows she knows 

—30— 



it, there is no ground for fear. This is the kind of 
confidence needed in the school room. 

19. Dependable. — < )ne of the most important 
characteristics of the good teacher is dependableness. 
She will work as hard and conscientiously when she 
is not being supervised as she does when she is. 
When you have assigned her a task, you can go about 
your business, feeling absolutely sure that she will 
perform it. Yon can count on her doing the work in 
her several subjects jnsi as it has been outlined for 
her, and on her not shirking a task, even though she 
thinks nobody will know il. When you have assigned 
her to a place on the school grounds, you can expect 
to find her there day after day, and you never have to 
remind her of her duty after you have once told her 
what it is. When there is any work to he done 
common to all the teachers and necessary to the good 
ol the schools, she is always ready to do her part and 
the principal may go about his duties, feeling that she 
will do it. Perhaps, one of the most vexing problems 
oi the principal is that of getting teachers to perform 
their part oi those duties common to the school as a 
whole, and it a teacher wants to find a sure way to 
the principal's heart, let her be willing to do her part, 
and a little more than her part, of those common 
duties. For the teacher to let the principal know that 
she can be depended upon to do just what he assigns 
her in the way of hall and ground duties, etc., will 
cover up a multitude of shortcomings in other places. 
The principal likes the teacher who is conscientious 
m her attendance to the general duties about the 
buildings and grounds. This is a little information 
tiie wise teacher will profit by. 

Dependableness is also important in the work of 
the school room. The supervisor of a school or 
school system likes to know that his instructions are 
being carried out. and if they are not being carried 

—31— 



out. lie wants to know the reason. Every well organ- 
ized school or school system has some definite policy 
and is working to the attainment of that policy by 
certain well laid plans. Whenever a teacher accepts 
a position in a school, she thereby pledges herself to 
do all in her power to carry out those plans with the 
ultimate policies of the school in view. The depend- 
able teacher will be faithful to her pledges. She 
will always be conscientious in the performance of 
duties assigned her and in carrying out the instruc- 
tions given her by the supervisor. This does not 
mean that she will be a mere machine with no judg- 
ment of her own. She will exercise her own wisdom 
as to the best methods of doing her work, but she will 
la- Mire that her methods are in harmony with the gen- 
eral policies of the school. Whenever she finds that 
it is impossible to carry out the instructions of her 
supervisor in a particular instance without detriment 
to the children, she will explain the situation to him, 
before adopting other methods. The wise supervisor 
always gives the teacher a wide latitude in her own 
work and leaves the matter of method largely to her 
own judgment, the only provision being that she get 
results and carry out the general policies of the 
scln iols. 

1 lependableness also means that the teacher can 
lie counted on to defend the plans and policies of the 
school. It mean-; that she is loyal to the school or 
school system and to every one connected with it. 
The dependable teacher is not merely passively in 
accord with what is being done; die is ready to defend 
the school against those who would criticise its 
methods or its general policies. The teacher who 
will not defend the policies of the school against 
tlios C who would criticise them is without the qual- 
ities necessary to the co-operative effort essential to 
the success of a school svstem. 



- ::•.' 



20. Courageous in the face o: difficulties.— 
When difficulties arise, all depends up< u the teacher's 
remaining- courageous. Many teachers, however, 

fail at this point. They do all righl at long as every- 
thing goes well, but when a few thing! g > wrong, 
they lose their poise and go to piei • Many a battle 

lias been lost at the critical point becaust the teacher 
lost her courage. The arithmetic class is plodding 
along, making slow or seemingly n< progress at all, 
the teacher loses her courage, comes ti the conclusion 
that they can not get the work and that further effort 
is useless, she drops to lower levels ol effort, and the 
class fails, when, very likely, if she had held out a 
little longer, she could have savei the situation. 
The teacher can nol afford to give u] for she ne 
knows just what the results of hi - are and it 

may be that she is succeeding bettei than it seems. 
The greater the difficulties, the hardei the fight, the 
more determined she >hould be t< She should 

remember that the success of her won depends u] i 
her determination to win at any cosl 

21. Sensitive to conditions in room — Sensit 
ness to conditions in the room mean- thai the teacher 
is in touch with every phase of the work and kno 
what each one in the room is doing It means that 
there is a spiritual communicatioi een her ; 1 
each pupil which prevents such a situation as the 
pupils' reading novels or playing dominoes when the 
regular work is going on. Some teachers becomi 
lost in their work, however, that they almost 
sight of what is going on in the ro They Si 

to forget that it is necessary to keep th< pupil in n I 
as well as his work and to see that t lit pupil is gt 
ing the work and responding to the efforts of the 
teacher. If the teacher would succeed in the sc 1 
room, she must make it a point to know what is going 
on in the room and not onlv know il hut be able to 



-:s:s— 



direct it so as to bring about unity of effort among the 
pupils. Effective teaching demands the teacher's in- 
timate touch with every condition in the room — -physi- 
cal, mental and spiritual. It demands that she know 
things are physically right, that the child is physically 
fit. that he is mentally in touch with his work, and 
that the spiritual atmosphere of the room is conducive 
to concentration and mental effort. The teacher 
must see after these conditions and make them right 
before she will be able to bring all the pupils together 
in unity of effort on the work at hand. If there is 
lack of unity and co-operation in the room, the teacher 
should know just where it is and the steps to take in 
bringing all together in co-operation to a common 
end. 

22. Takes interest in the pupil's outside activi- 
ties. — If boys and girls love the teacher, they will love 
her work, and the best way for the teacher to gain 
their confidence and esteem is to show them that she 
is interested in their outside activities. Boys and 
g'irls like for the teacher to be interested in something 
more than their studies and their interest in their 
studies will be largely in proportion to the teacher's 
interest in their games and plays. For this reason, 
the teacher should help the boys and girls plan their 
g-ames, she should take part in them when she can, 
and at least always be present to show her interest. 
Many a teacher has saved a difficult situation and cov- 
ered up a multitude of weaknesses along other lines 
by being able to outplay her pupils in their games. 
One teacher won a roomful of boys who were very 
hostile to her in the beginning by going on a hike with 
them and showing them that she could outwalk them. 
/Vnother teacher won a very difficult situation by 
coaching the boys in basket ball and showing them 
that she knew more about the game than they did. 
Another won the confidence of her pupils by showing 

—34 — 



them that she understood music and by organizing 
im orchestra; another by organizing a debating club, 
,,,,1 so on. Boys and girls do not esteem book 
ibility very highly, but they reverence the teacher 
who is pn.Ccient 'in baseball, basket ball, tennis, or 
anv of the games or activities that they engage m on 
(he outside Of school, and the teacher who really has 
l.he good of her pupils at heart will plan their outside 
activities just as she does their regular school work. 
23. Believes in pupils.— Teachers should re- 
member that the children in a room or class will con, 
,,:,,<■ pretty favorably with anv other room or class, 
and that if they do not seem to do so for a time, it is 
very probably because the teacher lias not approached 
them in the right way. It is true there are problems 
peculiar to every room and every class oi children. 
Children have different home conditions, they have 
had experiences different from the children of other 
rooms and das.es, and what would appeal to others 
will not appeal to them. These are some of the things 
the teacher must find out. if she wants results, and if 
the teacher goes ahead on the basis that all children 
are alike, she may expect failure. 

It is important, too, that the teacher know what 
,,, expect of her pupils, [t may be that the experiences 
of the pupils in a certain room along certain lines 
broader than those of pupils in other rooms or classes, 
and that they can grasp principles based on these ex- 
periences more readily. The teacher should know 
the pupil well enough to know the extent of his 
experiences and should build her faith accordingly. 
She is sure to meet with disappointment if she expects 
every fourth grade class, for instance, to be equally 
proficient in all the studies. Some classes will do 
some phases of the work better than others, while 
some phases they will not do as well : it depends upon 
their previous experience, and not so much, as the 



teacher sometimes too quickly says, on their normal- 
ity. We may be pretty sure that the normality of one 
room is about equal to that of another. There is 
sure to be a variation, however, in the practical ability 
of pupils as we go from room to room and from class 
to class. The teacher should expect this, study how 
to overcome it. and never let it cause her to doubt 
her pupils. 

The teacher's doubting is also fatal to her success 
in the school room in that it causes the pupil to lose 
confidence in himself. Self-confidence is one of the 
elements of character the school should seek to culti- 
vate, and the only way to cultivate it is through the in- 
spiring touch of the teacher. Many a class has been 
saved by the teacher's refusing to lose confidence in 
it and many a life has been saved by its feeling that 
there was at least one who believed in its ability to 
hold on. The great Edison was saved to the 
world by the confidence of his mother. His 
teacher's confidence had failed and the boy 
was ready to give up the fight, but his mother 
knew what the t&acher did not know — that the appar- 
ently dull, indifferent boy had in him the elements to 
make the greatest man of his age. A history of the 
world's illustrious men would show hundreds of other 
examples similar to that of Edison. Many of them 
were regarded as blockheads by teachers who did not 
understand them nor know how to reach them, and 
this fact should cause the teacher to realize that it 
is not always the apparently brightest room, the 
brightest pupil, that his the greatest possibilities and 
that her love and sympathy should cause her to look 
away down deep into the heart of her pupils and see 
their hidden possibilities long before they are evident 
to other less svmpathetic eves. 

24. Does not find fault. — The tault-finding, 
morose, headachy teacher is out of place in the school 

—36— 



room with little children. The teacher should be 
happy and cheerful, and she should look for good 
rather than for had. She should not find fault with 
the pupil or make him feel that she does not sympa- 
thize with him. When she has to show him his 
error, she should do so in love and kindness and in 
such a manner as to make him feel that the correction 
of such an error is but another forward step in his 
progress, ami that he should not be discouraged by 
it. but that he should rejoice that it was discovered 
to him as soon as it was. No greater mistake can be 
made by the teacher than to talk about the weaknesses 
of her pupils in the presence of others, or about 
them to others when they are likely to hear it. Even 
little children can understand and they never feel the 
same towards the teacher who whispers to the visitor 
that this or that little fellow is not bright, or is not 
doing well in school. If the teacher feels that the 
pupil i- not doing hi-- best, she should tell him so 
privately and never in such a manner as to wound his 
feelings. The teacher should always deal with the 
pupil --11 as to give him ambition for greater achieve- 
ment and make him feel that he can do what he sets 
his heart on. if he will but put forth the effort. 

25. Praises good work. — This topic is the 
positive side of tlie one discussed before. The way 
for the teacher to get excellent work is to show her 
appreciation for good work. When she feels that the 
pupil Iris put forth real effort and has done a piece 

of work that is g 1 for bun. even though it may not 

lie good for some other pupil, she should tell him so. 
The successful teacher makes the pupil feel that noth- 
ing worthy of commendation ever goes by without her 
notice. This does not mean that she is satisfied with 
a poor grade of work. She ha- high standards and 
always hold- them up to the pupils as the goal thev 
ire ultimately to ittain, but she explains to them that 



: 



such standards can not be attained at once, and that 
she will be satisfied if there is each day a little nearer 
approach to them. The good teacher has high stand- 
ards and she praises every effort to approach them. 
She makes the pupil feel that she is his friend, ready 
to sympathize and co-operate with him in every real 
effort that he makes. 

26. Knows the subject. — The good teacher 
knows the subject she is trying to teach. She knows 
more than a text on the subject, she knows the subject 
from beginning to end. She does not depend on the 
daily preparation for the knowledge of the subject she 
is to help the class consider, for she knows that such 
a method would result in the subject's being cut up 
into unrelated parts ami render impossible a grasp of 
it as a whole; that it would mean an inadequate re- 
view and thus only a partial insight into the subject. 
The good teacher makes daily preparation for her 
work ; she studies each lesson, but she has such a grasp 
of the subject as a whole as to be able to let the pupil 
r>ee more than one part of it at a time. 

Good results in the school room demand that the 
teacher be full of her subject and able to inspire the 
pupils with a love for it. The teacher can not lead 
i Ik- pupil to a clearer insight into the subject than she 
herself has. She can not lead him to a greater appre- 
ciation for a subject than she herself possesses, and 
her appreciation for the subject will go no deeper than 
her knowledge of it. 

Many teachers fail at just this point. They have 
no thorough, comprehensive grasp of the subject they 
are trying to teach, and are unable to lead their pupils 
to more than a hazy conception of it. They must de- 
pend on the daily preparation for the information 
necessary to do their work, and, as there are many 
things to interfere with their daily plan for study, 
they most frequently come to the recitation without 



-38- 



being prepared, and fail to arouse the interest of their 
classes. The teacher must have a thorough grasp of 
her subject in order to appreciate it; she must appre- 
ciate it herself before site can lead her pupils to 
appreciate it; hence we are not surprised that many 
teachers find it impossible to arouse interest in their 
classes and are compelled to continue day alter day 
with a deadening routine that becomes more and 
more destructive of the educational possibilities of 
her pupils the longer it is continued. Let the teacher, 
however, be full of her subject and afire with a zeal 
for it and she will have no trouble arousing the inter 
est of her classes. 

27. Plans lessons ahead.— The teacher should 
never lose sight of the child in the mazes of the school 
machinery, and she should always make him the cen- 
ter of gravity in the school. She should study the 
child, his needs and should carefully plan such a 
pro-ram of work as will bring about his development. 
She should use the subject as a means to that end and 
she should have a deeper insight into her work than 
to he satisfied to follow the pages of a text hook, or 
a general program that. is. perhaps, unsuited to the 
special conditions of her work. The good teacher 
will plan each day's work ahead and this planning 
will include something more than merely marking off 
the pages in the text she is -0111- to assign. She will 
know the present attainments of her pupils, what step 
they should take next, and she will plan the lesson 
that she believes will hest help them to take that 
step. Bringing about the development of hoys and 
girls is the most complicated task one can well con- 
ceive of, and surely no teacher would try to do it 
without plan and forethought. The teacher who 
does not plan her lessons ahead may he able to get by. 
and she may be able to make some people believe 
she is accomplishing something, but her work will 



-39- 



amount to but little so far as lasting results are con- 
cerned. She may feel many times that she is so 
crowded with other duties that she hasn't time for 
planning her work ahead; however she can afford to 
let the other duties go, for nothing can be more 
essential to the structure she is trying to erect than 
a well prepared plan. The teacher should make it 
a rule to devote a part of her afternoons or evenings 
to planning her work for the next day. She should 
let nothing interfere with such a rule. 

28. Keeps informed as to best methods. — It goes 
without saying that the teacher who is really a 
teacher, who really loves her children and is in her 
school room fur the goal she can do, will make every 
effort to become more proficient in her work. She 
will not go on day after day with the same methods 
regardless of result, but she will study each process 
and constantly ask herself if she is conducting 
such and such a recitation so as to get the best results. 
She will constantly ask herself why she does her work 
as she does and how she may do it better. She will 
take nothing for granted, but will study every step 
and she will follow no method just because it was 
inherited from some former teacher. This study of 
her own methods will cause her to look for help from 
other sources and educational journals, and it will put 
her in an attitude to get some real help from such 
sources. You may be pretty sure that the teacher 
will get but little help from a book or an educational 
journal until she first feels the need of such by a study 
of her own methods. Before she can get much help 
from such sources, she must first understand really 
what her problems are through an independent study 
of her own situation and feel her own inability to solve 
them. Fully ninety per cent of the reading of books 
and educational journals done by teachers is almost 
valueless because it is done in a perfunctory manner 



— 10— 



and not in answer to a felt need. The teacher feels 
that she must read the journals and educational books 
now and then to keep up with the times; but she 
seldom reads them to satisfy a felt need, and this is 
the only way that she can get any real good from 
them. If the teacher is not a student of her own 
methods, we may feel pretty sure that she does not 
feel this need and will get but meager results from her 

■ o.iks and journals. 

Then this study done as a result of felt needs is 
the only kind oi Study that will bring what the teacher 
learns into direct touch with her own work. It dues 

nil make so much difference about the teacher's be- 
ing informed as to the best methods; the question is, 
Does she use such methods m her daily work? In- 
formation ami use are not identical, and most people 
know better than they do. They do not make the 
knowing result in doing because they have not gained 
knowledge as a result of feeling the need <>i doing 
their work better. 

The teacher who will not read or study either to 
satisfy felt needs or to lie informed is in the most 
deplorable condition of all. Such a teacher needs to 
become alive to her work and put her heart in it, or 
get out of the business. She has no right to remain 
in the school room ami sacrifice the lives of the chil- 
dren to satisf} her ambitions along other lines She 
has no right to remain in the school room and not 
make every effort to improve herself. The good 
teacher will have accessible the best honks and maga 
zines bearing on her work, she will welcome the read- 
ing circle and long fur the teachers' meeting hecause 
she may through them gain some idea that will make 
her more proficient in her work. 

29. Co-operates with other teachers. — In the 
school where there is more than one teacher, there are 
duties common to all. Many teachers show srreat 



-41 — 



ability in their own work, but are unable to enter 
heartily into these common duties. They greatly 
lower the value of their own work by not being able 
to do team work. Ground duties, hall duties, the 
preparation of special programs, and many other 
things necessary to the success of the work of the 
school as a whole must be done if the school does not 
go to pieces, and no teacher has the right to remain 
in her own room and fail to asume her part of such 
duties. These common duties are the ground work 
without which the work of her room would be impos- 
sible, and the teacher has no right to share in their 
benefits without also sharing in their burdens. 

This spirit of co-operation is especially important 
where there is departmental work, and the teacher 
who fails to co-operate makes it impossible for such 
work to be effective. The teacher should feel that 
the aim of the work is not to cram into the head of the 
pupil the facts of the special subject she happens to 
be teaching, but to bring about his development, and, 
if she is interested primarily in such development, she 
will lose sight of her own subject or department and 
co-operate with the other teachers for the pupil's 
ultimate good. The teacher should not be willing 
to sacrifice the child for the attainment of her own 
self-interest or to succeed with her own subject. 
She should be willing to fail in her own subject, if 
such a failure would mean greater success to the work 
as a whole. 

30. Co-operates with the general plans of the 
school. — This topic has a wider significance than the 
one just preceding. It includes not only co-operation 
with her fellow teachers, with her principal, but with 
superintendent and the school board in carrying out 
the general policies of the school system. A school 
system that is worthy of the name has certain more 
or less definitely defined aims. These aims should be 

—42— 



made clear to the teachers and each one should feel 
that it is her duty to do all she can to help carry them 
out. She should do this even though such a course 
might mem a temporary sacrifice on her part or a 
temporary defeat of her own plans with reference to 
her own room or classes. Tf she can not do this he- 
cause of her lack of sympathy for the larger plans of 
the schools, she should at once sever her relationship 
with that school or school system. No teacher should 
work in a school system where she is out of harmony 
with its general policies. The teacher who wants to 
do the right thing will not enter a school system 
unless she has made up her mind to co-operate whole 
heartedly in all its policies, and after sine has entered 
it. she will newer by word or deed indicate that she is 
not in full sympathy with what is being done. 



—43- 



IV. TEACHING 

31. Based on pupil's past experiences. — There is 
no more fundamental law of pedagogy than that 
teaching to be effective must be based on the pupil's 
past experiences. This is the law of apperception, 
and by it we know that only those facts that are in 
some way related to the child's present stock of know- 
ledge can be understood by him. In other words, 
teaching to be effective must progress from the 
known to the related unknown. It must go from the 
simple to the complex. The child's present stock of 
knowledge or the sum of his past experiences form a 
basis upon which his future stock must be built. This 
we call his apperceptive basis, and there can be no 
learning without it. The teacher, then, can not do ef- 
fective teaching without knowing the child, his past 
experiences, the depth and meaning of these 
experiences, and how to use the subject so as to make 
it relate to such experiences. The teacher's task is a 
much more complicated one than merely presenting 
some facts as she comes to them in the text book. 
It may be that the child has no apperceptive basis for 
such facts and it will be necessary for her to go back 
and build up such a basis. The teacher may be sure 
that she will not reach the heart of the child and 
bring about his real education unless she bases his 
work on his past experiences. 

32. Based on pupil's present needs.- -For a long 
tune, the schools took no cognizance of the present 
worth of the child. It regarded him, not because of 
what he was as a child, but for what we would be 
when he became a man. Boys and girls were regard- 
ed as little men and women. They were thought to 
have similar thoughts, feelings and emotions, and 
-heir education consisted in giving them the informa- 
tion that would be useful to them as men and women. 
But thanks to the new conception of education that 



— 44- 



we have today due to the teachings of Pestalozzi, 
Herbart and Froebel, the child is no longer regarded 
ils a little man or woman or as being good for what 
lhe will grow to be after awhile. He is now regarded 
■ A complete being, with Ins own way oi looking a 
,hings. with his own feelings and emotions His 
physical, mental and moral life is entirely different 
rorn that of an adult, and he is actuated by different 
not i v es He has needs peculiar to his childhood and 
■1 K . best way to make him a complete man is first to 
make him a complete child. We destroy the possibil- 
ties of manhood when we disregard the instincts and 
tendencies of childhood. This is why the tendency 
n education today is to adapt the work of the schools 

to the present needs of the child. Nearly all modern 
text books are built upon this conception of education 
and the teacher will have but little difficulty m this 
part of her task. However, when it comes to the 
^plication of the text to the needs of the child, her 
task will be more difficult, and when we realize that 
there are not only need, peculiar to childhood in gen- 
eral but that each child has needs peculiar to himself 
hat must be recognized in his training, the task of 
the teacher looms ten-fold more difficult. 

The child will not respond to a particular course 
lf instruction until he feels the need of such instruc- 
tion It will do hut little good, for instance, to trj to 
teach him number facts, until the need o such num- 
ber facts is felt in his daily life. ^ will make bu 
i itt le pro-ress in learning to read until he feels the 

f ,„. himself the stories told him by his teacher and 

others In fact, the same principle holds in the edu- 

cationof all people. None of us reall) learns a thing 

intil we have a use for such thing, and one o the 

.rreatest defects in modem scl 1 work is that we 

iVv to eet the children to learn just for the sake oi 



— 1."> — 



learning, when they are no more interested in study 
for its own sake than are men and women. The 
lawyer studies his law books when he has a case to 
ry, and not one in a thousand reads general law for 
general information. The preacher studies when he 
has a sermon to prepare and the average preacher de- 
votes very little time to Shakespeare, Milton, Tenny- 
son or Browning, unless he expects to find in these a 
point for his sermons. The merchant reads his trade 
journals for new ideas to apply in his business, the 
banker reads his bank journals for new ideas about 
running his bank, and the teacher reads educational 
journals for help in her school work. Nobody but 
the pedant reads just for the sake of reading and for 
the sake of the knowledge per se. and the world is no 
worse off because this honored class is daily growing 
smaller and smaller. 

People out in the world study for specific pur- 
poses, and the great problem of the schools today is 
to set specific purposes before the boys and girls in 
their school work. People on the outside of school do 
not read general history just to learn it. They do not 
study geometry merely to learn it and for the mental 
exercise it gives. They do not read Keats and 
Shelley and Wordsworth and Southey just for the 
sake of knowing them. There are too many practical 
problems they must solve in their business and every 
day life to devote their time to mental gymnastics. 
They study to gain certain ends and not merely for 
the exercise, like the squirrel in the cage revolving 
to no purpose, and we have no reason to believe that 
hoys and girls are more interested in such gymnastics 
than are men and women. In fact, we have every 
reason to believe that they are less interested in such 
things and our trying to force such an interest has 
resulted in almost a complete failure. We must 
adapt our school work to the needs of the child; then 



-46— 



he will study like men and women to satisfy such 

33 Reaches each child.— This topic goes a little 
further than the one above and sees that the work 
of the schools is not only adapted to the child s needs, 
but that it actually reaches its destination and satisfies 
those needs. It is not enough that instruction be 
based on the child's pasl experiences and adapted to 
his present needs, but the connection must be made 
an d the teacher's responsibility does not cease until 
the less,,,, has been actually transformed into physical, 
mental or spiritual fibre. The task of the teacher is 
not a general, but a particular one. It is not to teach 
a r oom of children or a class of children, but the indi- 
vidual child. Her work is not ended until she has 
reached them ad with their varying capacities and 
needs and has brought each one a little nearer to his 
possibilities as citizen of the world as ,t is today. 

34 Goes beyond mere information— The great- 
est temptation that, perhaps, the teacher has to 
overcome is that of regarding mere information as the 
aim ,,f her work. She is prone to forget that there 
are three steps in the educational process— (1) the 
accumulation of knowledge, (2) its organization, and 
(3) its application, and that the first can not be com- 
pleted until it has been organized and applied, and 
the teacher who does not lead the child beyond the 
first step is not educating him at all. Information 
accumulated and not assimilated by being organized 
anc ] applied is like food in the stomach undigested— it 
leads to mental and moral dyspepsia, and the schools 
,,f the past have done great harm in carrying the pupil 
on year after year accumulating information and in 
never giving him time to organize and apply it. In- 
formation should be accumulated onlj in answer to a 
felt need and then it should at once be made to minis- 
ter to that need. Like the manna of the ancient 



it is like the ancient manna in that, if we become 
greedy and acquire more than is needed for present 
use, it will spoil on our hands. This is as necessary in 
school work, too, as it is on the outside of school, 
and the great problem with teachers is to make pro- 
vision for the application of information as it is 
acquired. 

This problem of the acquisition of knowledge 
in response to felt needs and the application of 
it to those needs, is as yet almost wholly unsolved in 
the country. The Gary system is a result of an 
attempted solution and has met with better results 
than any cither similar attempt because it is backed 
by the genius of William Wirt. John Dewey, while 
at the head (if the School of Education at the 
Universitv of Chicago, made an attempt to solve it 
and met with some degree of success. Best of all he 
called the attention of the country to the need of its 
solution and set hundreds of other school men to 
work on it. John Dewey's solution to the problem 
consisted: ( 1 ) In an effort to bring the school into a 
closer relation to home and neighborhood life; (2) In 
making such subjects as history and the sciences have 
a real value in the child's own life. In history, for 
instance, he does not study about things that are 
external to his own interests, but he begins at home 
with the things around him and in which he is inter- 
ested and goes from these to the things that are 
remote. He thus builds up a manysided interest; 
Israelites, it should be gathered only as it is used and 
(3) In carrying on instruction in such subjects as 
reading, writing and arithmetic with every day exper- 
iences and occupations as a back ground. Thus we 
see that the efforts towards a solution of the problem 
of adapting the school work to the needs of the child 
represent an attempt to go beyond mere information 



-48— 



ami give opportunity for the application of such infor- 
mation in every day life. 

35. Provides for frequent reviews. — Effective 
teaching demands that the teacher have Mich a grasp 
of her subject as to enable her to give frequent 
reviews. The main reason teachers do not review 
more than they do is because they do not have a com- 
prehensive grasp of their subject, and thus are unable 
to give their pupils more than a phase of it at a time. 
This leads to ineffectiveness in their work, for reviews 
are absolutely essential to the pupil's comprehensive 
and permanent grasp of the subject. Each day the 
teacher should devote some tune to reviewing the 
lessons of previous days. These reviews may be oral 
or written, depending upon conditions. I hey should 
cover more thoroughly the more recent lessons and 
at longer and longer intervals include all the lessons 
gone over until they are firmly fixed in the pupil's 
mind, ddie first time a fact is presented it makes hut 
a slight impression and will soon pass out oi the 
mmd, if attention is not called to it again. It is for 
this reason that the facts and principles of the several 
school studies should lie presented more than once. 
The teacher should not assign lessons long enough to 
consume all the recitation period ami she should let 
the pupils feel that they are each day to he held to 
account, not only for the day's lessons, hut for all 
those lessons -one over. If the teacher confines 
herself always to the day's lesson, the pupils will 
soon come to expect this, and former lessons will pass 
out i if their minds. 

36. Requires unity in the recitation. — Unity in 
l he recitation demands that all the members of the 
dass he working on the same problem at the same 
lime. It demands a common goal and a united 
effort. All must he solving the same problem in 
arithmetic, parsing the same word in grammar, work- 



-49- 



ing on the same design in drawing, considering the 
same topic in history, or studying the same assign- 
ment in geography. There must be unity in the 
recitation to enable the teacher to direct the work, 
and she must direct it in order to be sure that each 
one is entering into the recitation. The teacher 
should take a position with reference to the class so 
that she can most easily get the eye of each one of the 
pupils. This makes it easier for the pupils to follow 
the thought and it helps the teacher to determine who 
is following and who is not. The unity of the recita- 
I ion sin mid never be permitted to be broken by a con- 
versation between the teacher and a pupil or between 
two pupils. The teacher should direct her efforts to 
the class as a whole and wait for special occasions to 
give individual help. 

Too much talking on the part of the teacher is 
the most prolific cause of broken unity in the recita- 
tion and the teacher should carefully guard against it. 
It is all right for the teacher to talk, if she is sure her 
pupils are following her; but, as this is seldom the 
case, she should use her talking prerogative with 
great care. As a rule, the pupil becomes inactive and 
relaxes when the teacher takes the recitation in hand 
and does the talking, hence the teacher should keep 
the pupils in the lead, unless she knows her lead is 
being followed by them. Effectiveness -in teaching 
demands that every pupil in the class go through the 
thought process involved in the recitation. It de- 
mands that the pupil be made to feel that every ques- 
tion asked is his question and that it is his dutv to an- 
swer it in his mind, if he is not called upon to do it 
orally. The pupil should never be permitted to feel 
that when he has answered his question, his respon- 
sibility ceases. His question is every question. 

37. Standards high ; only pupil's best efforts ac- 
cepted. — The ineffectiveness of teaching, in many 

— .-,o— 



rase,, is .hie to low standards. The teacher is satis- 
fied with almost any kind of a response from the pupil 
and to be sure the great majority of pupils will do 
no more than is required of them. The teacher 
should accept only the pupil's best efforts. \\ hen she 
asks him to draw a map. she should be sure that he 
does Ins best, and she should not be satisfied with 
just any kind of a botch that he calls a map. '1 he 
teacher" should know her pupils well enough to be 
able to determine when they are doing their b< 
and she is not treating them justly, if she permits 
them to do less. 

The difference in the standards of teachers is wn 
evident as von pass front room to room. In some 
rooms, you find maps and drawings of the poorest 
type, indicating indifference, carelessness and lack of 
effort on the part of the pupils, not merely in these 
subjects, but in all subjects. You will find in an ad- 
joining room where there is the same class of pupils 
and the same general conditions, work that is neat, 
accurate, showing pains-taking care and effort in us 
production. The difference is not in the pupils, but 
in the teacher. Pupils do no more than is required of 
them. In reading, language, arithmetic and other 
studies, they tend to meet the standards of the 
teacher. 

This does not mean that the teacher is to be 
hvper-critical. fault-finding, or severe in her attitude 
towards her pupils. She is to be pleasant, agreeable, 
kind, patient, and sympathetic. Pupils soon find out 
her demands without her making an ado about them, 
and they almost unconsciously strive to meet them. 
It is a good plan for the teacher to let the pupils know 
at the beginning of the term what she is going to 
expect of them. She should show them what good 
work is and should endeavor during the first days of 
school to fix standards in all the studies. She should 



-51— 



show them what a good drawing is, good reading, 
good number work. etc. The teacher who fails to 
improve the opportunity of the first days of school 
to fix ideals and standards in her work may expect 
poor results. On the other hand, the teacher, who 
takes hold of the situation in earnest and sets the 
proper standards in the beginning, will do much to 
overcome any shortcomings of former teachers and 
she will soon have any room she takes hold of in good 
condition. 

38. Avoids lifeless formalities. — The great temp- 

ation of the teacher is to descend into a deadening 
•iiutine of lifeless formalities. If she does not take 
great care, she will get into the habit of doing her 
work in a certain way and she will lose sight of the 
great aims she should constantly have in view. It is a 
sad commentary on the schools that, perhaps, the 
great majority of teachers do not know why they do 
their work as they do. They learn certain methods of 

e ching reading, arithmetic, language, history, etc., 
from their former teachers and seem to think that it 
is impossible to improve on them. 

We should not think much of the chances of 
success of the business man who used year after year 
the methods he inherited from his elders. Business 
conditions are constantly changing and the man who 
fails to ad ipt his methods to them is sure to meet with 
failure. Conditions in school work are changing as 
rapidly as those in the business world. Even the 
fundamental aims in education today are not what 
•they were twenty-five years ago, and the 
teacher who inherits her methods from twenty- 
five years in the past is not working at all 
to accomplish the purpose of the modern school. 
During the past twenty-five years, we have found out 
a l;oo:1 many things about child nature and the meth- 
ods of bringing about its development, and it is as 



important for the teacher to take advantage of such 
knowledge as it is for the business man to take 
advantage of the improvements in business. The 
progressive teacher will study her own work in the 
light <'f tlie advances that have been made in educa- 
tional science, -lie will study the work of other teach- 
ers, ami she will seek t" emplo) from day to day the 
methods that will get the best results. She will try 
to forget methods inherited from former teachers, ex- 
cept as the) meet the test that she applies to all new 
methods. She will try a method until it ceases to 
arouse the best efforts of her pupils, and then she will 
tiw another. She will always be studying and plan- 
ning a surprise for her classes, s,, as t,, keep their 
interest active and alert. 

There ran he no mure fruitless endeavor than 
going over the lessons day after day in a formal, me- 
chanical way. Pupils soon learn what to expect and 
they adopt levels oi efforts to meet the requirements. 
When, however, the teacher is wide-awake and con- 
stantly planning a surprise, pupils do -nit know wdiat 
to expect and remain active and alert m their work. 

38. Tests preparation of lesson. — Main teachers 
conduct then' work in such a manner as to afford no 
test of the pupil's preparation. Especially in the high 
school, mail) teachers seem to think that the aim 
ol their work is t < > get into their pupil's heads the 
customary quantum of information. They tike up 
all the time of the class talking to the pupils, and 
give them no opportunity to respond. There are 
man\ subjects that well-read pupils can "camouflage" 
their way through without preparation, and they will 
do so. if the teacher does not make the lesson a test of 
specific preparation. It is not the ability of the pupil to 
recite that is the important thing; but it is the amount 
ol work he has done, the skill he has acquired, the 
confidence he has gained, and the renewed determina- 



tion to put forth greater effort, that should especially 
interest the teacher. The information is nothing, if 
it does not result in these things. The teacher should 
remember that the purpose of her work is not to "pour 
in," but to "draw out." Education is not an accre- 
tion from without; it is a growth from within, and the 
only way the pupil grows from within is by the in- 
telligent effort he puts forth. "Camouflaging" is no 
substitute for effort. The teacher should not be satis- 
fied with a mere response from her classes; she 
should know that such response is the result of hard 
work done in the preparation of the lesson and not 
merely some general information the pupil has on 
hand. 

40. Makes haste slowly. — Many teachers are 
afraid of worrying their classes and pass from the 
topic before the pupils have more than a smattering 
knowledge of it. One of the characteristics of the 
good teacher is that she knows when her pupils know 
a thing and holds them to a topic until they master 
it. She is not willing to let a topic pass merely be- 
cause one pupil has discussed it. She tests the entire 
class on the topic and sees that all know it. When a 
pupil has solved a problem and she feels that some 
members of the class do not understand it. she calls 
on those she doubts to explain it or parts of it, and in 
the great majority of cases, she finds that her fears 
were right. She is not satisfied with the mere state- 
ment that all understand. She tests their understand- 
ing if there is any doubt about it, and she is in close 
enough touch with the class to know whether they 
really understand or are just pretending. When the 
pupil has presented one side of a question, she 
asks him or some other pupil, to turn it over and ex- 
plain the other side. She is patient, she never gets 
in a hurry, and she sees that every inch of the ground 
is covered. 



-54 — 



The supreme test of the teacher comes just at this 
point, and there is more poor teaching due to the 
teacher's permitting the pupils to pass over work 
without mastering it than from any other cause. It 
seems that many teachers do not grasp the full 
meaning of their work, for if they did, they would not 
leave a topic just at the time when the pupils are be- 
ginning to derive some real educational value from 
it. They would not leave it before the pupils have 
grasped its full significance, seen its full relationship 
to the other topics passed over, and organized and 
made it their own. The teacher, of course, does not 
want to worry her classes and destroy their interest 
in the topic under consideration, hut she does not 
have to do this in order to be thorough. She can 
present the topic in different ways, showing the pupils 
new phases of it and thus keep up their interest. The 
good teacher is not afraid of drill, for she knows that 
it is not drill that kills the interest of her class, but 
-old formalities and deadening routine. She believes 
in intelligent drill, with emphasis on the "intelligent." 
for she knows that her pupils can not master their 
work without it. She has hut little respect for those 
theorists who claim that pupils can learn the multipli- 
cation tallies, spelling, the mechanics of reading, writ- 
ing and drawing, etc.. without drill. There, is a place 
for self-activity in the school — in fact it is the funda- 
mental law of pedagogy — hut it is the self-activity that 
is wisely directed on the hasis of child nature and 
needs, and not that based on whims and fancies. The 
child's instincts are no safer guide in his education 
than they are in his eating. 

41. Fulfills lesson plan. — The good teacher 
plans her work, but she does not stop with a mere 
plan. She is not satisfied until such a plan has been 
carried out. Many teachers formulate good lesson 
plans, hut the end of the recitation period comes 



—55- 



without such being executed, and their planning 
amounts to but little. The teacher should have clearly 
in mind the execution of the lesson plans she makes, 
and she should constantly change her plans and adapt 
them to the needs of her class so that their execution 
will be possible. She should never be satisfied for 
the lesson period to end without the lesson plan's 
being fulfill' 

42. Arouses and sustains interest. — This can 
be lone only by adapting the instruction to the needs 
of the child and by making him feel that such in- 
struction is vital to him. The teacher must know the 
st bject, the child, his needs as a child, and be able 
to make the subject minister to his needs. It will do 
no good to build the recitation on a false interest or 
a false enthusiasm for such interests or enthusiasm 
will soon subside and leave conditions worse than be- 
fore. The lessons must actually go home to the 
heart of the child and minister to his needs. 

loo much instruction in the schools is of the 
kind that regards the child as a passive recipient of 
some information handed out to him by the teacher. 
Such instruction does not arouse his dormant powers. 
He remains half-asleep, as it were, through the whole 
process and the teacher seldom has opportunity to 
see what he can really do. Sometimes when a pupil 
is transferred from one teacher to another, we can 
see the difference between his being aroused and his 
remaining asleep. Under one teacher, he will appear 
dull and unconcerned about his work, and under 
another he will be bright, active, alert and respon- 
sive to every effort of the teacher. The trouble with 
the first teacher is that she does not understand the 
child and does not know- how to reach him. The 
writer knows of many cases of this kind, but he espe- 
ciallv remembers that of a child who, for the first two 
years in school was regarded as exceptionally dull, but 



30— 



who became the brightest of pupils when placed under 
a teacher who understood him. The child will love the 
teacher who understands him. and if In- loves the 
teacher, he wall love her teaching. Too many teachers 
look upon their work as a cold business proposition 
mil soon come to deal with boys and girls about as 
they would with brick and mortar. They do not seem 
to realize thai the sclu iol room is one place where busi- 
ness in not business and that their task is one that de 
mauds more than an objective treatment. It requires 
the deepest resources of the teacher's mind and heart. 
If the teacher arouses and sustains the interest oi her 
pupils, she musl do so through an intimate under- 
standing of their nature and need-, ail approach them 
with a love and sympath} the_\ cannot misunderstand. 
43. Assignment arouses effort-evoking interest. 
— In the lesson assignment the teacher should make 
clear to each pupil just w hat he is to do m the prep 
tion of the lesson. She should also take the time to 
make clear to the pupils the relation of this assi 
i nen t to the lessons a In tie over, and she should 

endeavor to tie it up to the child'- expei ience 
arouse in him effort evoking interest. I In- teacher 
has not done her full duty in the assignment unless 
-he has aroused the child's desire to master the 
lesson. She should arouse the child's curiosity and 
make him feel that the new lesson contains some 
things of \ital interest to him. She should also give 
him an insighl as to how to attack it. When the 
assignment includes no more than the next pages in 
the text book, there is no incentive for the child to 
master it. and the teacher should not feel that she has 
properlv assigned a lesson until she has furnished 
the child with a sufficient motive to learn it. In the 
assignment the teacher should also show the pupils 
the methods of study necessary to its mastery. It is 
a pathetic sight to see little children floundering 



around, turning the pages of their books here and 
there, helpless in the face of the problems assigned 
them, because the teacher has failed to teach them 
how to study the lesson. - 

44. Develops self-control. — This topic includes 
not merely the instruction, but every phase of the 
school organization. Self-control will not be devel- 
oped in the school room where the teacher is a master 
whose word is law and where pupils are regarded as 
inferiors with no rights of their own. The only way 
to develop self-control in the pupil is to give him 
opportunity to exercise such control, and this can not 
be done where every action is defined and he can do 
nothing without the consent of the teacher. 

From the beginning, the child should be taught 
that the rules of the school are what they are because 
\he school is the kind of institution it is, and that 
the school is what it is because it is best adapted to 
the child's nature and needs. He should be taught 
that the rules are not made by the teacher, but are 
inherent in the organism, and that best things will 
come to him by obeying them. As long as the child 
feels that he must obey merely because the teacher 
says so and he can not understand the reason for such 
obedience, he is not going to obey wholeheartedly, 
and whole hearted obedience is the only kind that 
leads to self-control. Self-control is a matter of will 
power and will power can be developed only where 
there is opportunity for the exercise of will. The will 
is exercised only when the child has a choice. 

If a stranger were to visit our schools today, he 
would think that we are preparing the pupils for an 
autocracy. The teacher is a sovereign, the pupils 
are taught to obey without question, and the fact that, 
in many cases, they are leagued together against the 
teacher is evidence that such an organization is not 
having a who'esome effect on them. Children do not 

— 58 — 



tell on one another in school because they feel that 
the teacher one side and they are on the other, 

and that it is dishonorable to betray a friend. They 
refuse to tell on one another for tin reason 

that the subjects of an absolute autocrat would refuse 
to reporl a neighbor who had violated the law. Such 
a condition in our schools is out of harmony with our 
efforts i" nreparc the boys and girls for a great 
demon to and it is doing much to create among the 
people the disregard for law which we see is very 
prevalent and which we are told is on the increase. 
ddiis condition leads not merely to a disregard tor the 
la\\> of the land, but to a lack of self-control along 
other lines. We can not expect to develop law abid- 
ing citizens if we regard children as inferiors all 
during their school life and turn them loose at the end 
if the school days without the habit of self-control',-, 
having been formed. 

t hildren can not, of course, be given full power 
in school, but they can he given ample opportunity for 
the exercise of their own judgment ami to make de- 
cisions according to their own volitions. Such oppor- 
tunities should be handed to them little at a time, and 
by the time they are read} to leave the school, they 
should have the will power and judgment necessary 
i.. their duties as citizens of the world. The 
American school should lie a miniature democracy 
where the pupils are not merely preparing for life, 
lint actually living it. 



-59 — 



V. THE PUPILS' RESPONSE 

45. All take part in the recitation. — A good reci- 
tation is one in which all pupils are alive to the task 
before them and enter it with enthusiasm. In such 
a recitation the teacher does not take the place of 
prominence and do all the talking, but she sees that 
every pupil does his part. The teacher should, cer- 
tainlv. not be satisfied when three or four pupils 
answer all the questions while the others sit back, like 
visitors, in a state of passing indifference. Her 
responsibility does not cease when she has merely 
gone through the motion of hearing the lesson. 
Going through the lesson amounts to nothing, having 
the questions answered amounts to nothing, and the 
teacher who is satisfied with such results has a very 
limited conception of her task. She should not be 
satisfied unless every pupil in the class is awake, in- 
terested in what is being done, and mentally taking 
part in every step of the recitation. Her responsibil- 
ity does not cease when she has done the teaching; 
in fact there can not he teaching in the true sense of 
the term unless there is learning. The teacher has 
not taught unless the pupil has learned. The teacher 
has not completed her task until the contents of her 
teaching have been assimilated by the pupil and 
transformed into mental and moral fibre. She should 
not be satisfied if "most"of the pupils take part; her 
aim should be to have all take part, and there should 
he no pupil so insignificant as to be overlooked by 
her. She should not become so absorbed in the wel- 
fare of her best pupils as to lose sight of the poor 
ones; and the spirit of the great Teacher should cause 
her to leave the ninety and nine and go out into the 
wilderness for the one that is lost. 

46. Do most of the talking. — An investigation 
was made in one of our city school systems, and it 
was found that the teachers in that system did from 



GO — 



75 to 90 per cent of the talking in the recitation, and 
no doubt a similar investigation would reveal a like 
condition the country over. This shows that we are 
still dominated by the informational conception of 
education We still regard the school as an education 
a] race course around which the children are to be run 

at f u u 5 peed and at the end of which are to be given 
diplomas as evidence that they have made the rounds 

and ca l!ed educated. We still act as it we thought 
the child was an open vessel to be filled rather than a 

living being to be educated. Not only should the 
teacher not do most of it. but we should not be far 
wrong to ^u that she should not do more than 10 
Der vent of it She should certainly do no more than 
is necessary to irouse the efforts of the child and to 
set him to work on his task. The more skilled she is 
in her work, the fewer words will it take to accomplish 
this purpose, and the talking teacher proves her 111- 
efficiencvbA her verv talking. On many occasions, she 
mav verv" profitably take a hack scat and let 
the pupils conduct the recitation, always being on 
han d of course, to see that it takes the right turn. 
Excellent results have keen accomplished in many 
places by class organizations, where each recitation 
is conducted by some pupil appointed the day before 
for that purpose. This method will not always suc- 
ceed hut it is suggestive of others that the resourceful 
teacher will think out for herself. Whatever the 
method followed, the teacher should remain in the 
hack ground as much as possible, put the pupils in 
the lead, and let them do most of the talking. 

47. Have proper attitude towards work.^ I here 
can not he effective teaching unless the pupil has a 
proper attitude towards his work. There will not he 
such an attitude unless this work is adapted to 
Ins needs and properly motivated. Children 
,M not have .i good attitude in school unless the 



\\ 



-CI- 



work appeals to them. They could not be expected 
to be very enthusiastic and to love their work when 
most of it is nothing but deadening routine and dry 
formalities. 

The teacher is, of course, the most important 
element in making the pupil's attitude what it is. 
Her personality, her attitude towards the pupil, and 
the sympathy she shows for his work will have much 
in (In in bringing him into a good attitude towards the 
work of the school. The teacher must be interested 
in his outside activities, and if she is not interested in 
these outside activities, she will find it hard to secure 
a proper atttude among her pupils for their school 
work. The teacher who plays with the children is 
likely to have their co-operation in the regular work 
of the school. But, however such an attitude may 
lie brought about, it is absolutely essential to good 
results and without it the teacher's task is like trying 
to pour water into a closed vessel. 

48. Prompt in bringing up work. — The prompt- 
ness with which the pupil> bring up their work shows 
how effective the work of the teacher has been. If 
pupils are prompt in bringing both everyday lessons 
ami the written work that is required of them, the 
teacher may rest assured that they are responding 
to her efforts. However, it is a bad sign for the 
pupils to take little or no interest in their work and 
always to be tardy in bringing up their outside assign- 
ments. The teacher should demand promptness. 
The lack of it should be evidence to her that there is 
something wrong, and she should not be satisfied 
until she has found out what it is and removed the 
cause. 

49. Show independence of thought. — One of 
the aims of school work is to make the pupils inde- 
pendent thinkers. This is to be done not by requiring 
them to follow blindlv what the teacher and the text 



hook say, but by giving them opportunity to use their 
own minds. In every study, the pupil should be 
taught to he an investigator. He should be taught 
to study with a definite aim in his work and to test 
everything he reads in the light of his own experi- 
ences. If what he reads does not harmonize with his 
experiences, he should either reject it or prove 1>\ 
further study that his experiences are at fault. In 
this way, he will be able to correct mane of his wrong 
ideas ami to bring himself into a closer relationship 
with his environment. 

One of the greatest demands on the schools of 
today is the production of independent thinkers. In 
fact, our democracy will not he safe as long as the 
great majority of the people are willing to follow 
the leadership of ;i feu and refuse to think for them- 
selves. Our country will not he safe until all the 
people, or at least, the majority of them, do their own 
thinking, and our great public school system will not 
have clone its full duty until such is the case. If men 
and women are to think for themselves when they get 
out into the world, they must he taught to think for 
themselves in the schools. The schools will not teach 
them to think as Ion- as they follow their present 
medievalistic methods and regard it as their aim to 
cram into the pupils' heads the learning of pas) ages. 
They will not teach pupils to think if they themselves 
refuse to think and if they follow blindly a pro-ram 
of work inherited from a world entirely different from 
our own. The schools should throw formalism and 
traditionalism to the winds, adapt their program to 
the needs of the child and to the conditions of the 
world today. They should make provision not mere- 
ly for the first step in the educational process — the 
accumulation of knowledge, but they should also pro- 
vide for its organization and application. Each study 
should he arranged with certain problems for the 

—63— 



pupils to solve and not merely with a view to gather- 
ing the customary number of facts. A problem 
should be the center of interest in each lesson, 
whether the lesson be in arithmetic, grammar, geo- 
graphy or history. If the study is Mich that it is 
impossible to arrange for such problems, it has no 
claim on the children's attention. No subject should 
be pursued primarily for the sake of its content. The 
content should always he a secondary consideration 
and it will take care of itself, if there is a problem 
involved that requires independent thinking. < >ne of 
the main reasons why children are no more interested 
in their school work is because it is almost entirely a 
cramming process. Children are not interested in 
such a process. They like to engage in study where 
there is a real problem involved. Arranging such 
problems and having them ready for each lesson is 
one of the important tasks of the teacher. This 
problem should he set clearly before the children in 
the assignment. 

50. Make good when they leave supervision. — 
The supreme test of the work of the teacher is the 
permanence of its results. The teacher's work may 
seem to he of superior quality, it may please her 
patrons, as viewed from day to day, be remarkably 
successful, and yet lack permanence. In many cases 
when pupils go to their next teacher, they have for- 
gotten most of the things they hail learned, and 
become a real problem because their former teacher 
did not require them to be thorough in their work. 
As suggested before, when such a problem is taken 
hold of tactfully and patiently, it can very probably in 
a short while be solved. Nevertheless, it is a problem 
due to the former teacher's doing work that lacked 
permanent value. Whenever a good teacher takes 
charge of a room, it does not take her long to decide 
whether the work of her predecessor was thorough or 



-64- 



superficial. The pupils may have become rusty he- 
cause of a long vacation, but the merit of their pre- 
vious training will become evident at once. 

Then looking at the work of the school from a 

broader point of view, its chief aim should lie to send 
its pupils out mto the world thoroughly equipped to 
solve its problems and to meet its conditions. The 
worth of an institution becomes very evident in the 
character of the products it sends out into the world. 
The writer knows a school winch sends out into the 
world voung men ami women alive to its problems. 
They are full of spun and enthusiasm and have tin- 
practical knowledge and common sense necessar) to 
their fitting into their places in practical affairs. 
Their services are in demand because people know 
they have hail the training that insures success 
ddiere is another school winch crams its pupils lull 
of knowledge and has a reputation for thoroughness, 
but. somehow, it fails to give its pupils the "punch" 
necessarj'- to their success in the practical world. Its 
pupils are not alive, they lack self-confidence, and 
people do not trust them as they do the pupils of the 
former school. 

Now what is it that makes the difference between 
these two schools? The second school has a better 
reputation for thoroughness than the first: it has as 
many men and women with university degrees among 
its faculty; its course of study is practically the 
same as that of the first ; ami it has just as large and 
just as rich a territory to draw from. Yet the first 
school enrolls during the year more than two thou- 
sand students, while the second is proud of an 
enrollment of four or five hundred. This seems to go 
t<> prove that a school must have something more 
than a good course of study, more than a scholarly 
faculty, more than a rich community to draw from, 
and that it must sro beyond thoroughness in its work. 



It must have spirit. A school without spirit is as 
dead as a man without life, and a dead school can 
not produce live products. The first school referred 
to above has a live president, a live faculty, and they 
put life into every phase of its work. The other 
school is content to go through its every day pro- 
gram, it takes little interest in the things boys and 
girls are interested in, and it fails to produce the 
spirit necessary to their success in the world. With 
a school as with a teacher, if it would have boys and 
girls take interest in their studies and profit by their 
pursuit, it must take interest in the things they like 
and make it possible for them to satisfy every side 
of their lives. 



BOOKS EVERY TEACHER SHOULD READ 

1. Clark's Youth: Its Education, Regimen and 
Hygiene. D. Appleton & Co., New York. 

2. Curtis' Education Through Play. Macmil- 
lan Co., New York. 

.">. Dewey's Democracy and Education. Mac- 
millan Co., New York. 

1. Dresslar's School Hygiene, Macmillan Co.. 
New York. 

Fisher and Fisk's How to Live. Funk & 
Wagnalls Co., New York. 

6. Freeman's Psychology of the Common 
Branches. Houghton, Mifflin Co., Boston. 

7. Halleck's The Education of the Central Ner- 
vous System, Macmillan Co., New York. 

8. Hughes' Froebel's Educational Laws. D. 
Appleton & Co., New York. 

9. James' Talks to Teachers. Henry Holt & 
Co., New Yi irk. 

10. Moore's What is Education. Ginn & Co., 

In i - 1 < hi. 

11. Morehouse's The Discipline of the School, 
1). C. Heath & Co., Chicago. 

12. McMurry's I low to Study and Teaching 
Hovs to Study. Houghton, Mifflin Co., Boston. 

13. Monroe's History of Education. Macmillan 
C i 1., New York. 

It. Smith's All the Children of All the People. 
Macmilian Co., New York. 

15. St raver & Norsworthy's How to Teach. 
Macmillan Co., New York. 

It',. Tompkin's Philosophy of School Manage- 
ment. ( iinn N' Co., Boston. 



—67- 



H 314 79 



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